The Marauders
by Silena River
Summary: The Adventures of Moony, Talon, Padfoot, and Prongs!
1. Chapter 1

Remus rushed through the wall; eyes squeezed shut, bracing for a collision that never came. Remus opened his light blue eyes, then they lit with wonder at the sight before him.

Platform 9¾ was bustling with families waiting for their children to board the train to Hogwarts. Owls were flying in every direction, some with letters and some without. Cats of practically every color weaved through the crowd, a few with their next meals clutched in their jaws. The sun streamed through the windows, giving the platform a cheery air.

Remus heard the excited chattering of children and nervously turned toward his parents, who had entered through the wall. Remus' mother smiled at her son, watching as the bright sun glinted off his soft, sand-colored hair. "Be good, Remus. I'll miss you," she said softly, smoothing Remus' hair.

Remus grinned and hugged his mother. "I will, mum." Remus turned to his father and threw his arms around the tall man. "I'll miss you, da."

Mr. Lupin hugged his son tightly. He bent down to look Remus in the eye. "Remus, you will be safe at Hogwarts. Dumbledore has a plan to, ah, _contain _your…condition." The tall, solemn father smiled at Remus and ruffled his untidy hair. "Be good. We'll be looking forward to letters, son."

Remus grinned even wider, and then began tugging his cart toward the train. Mr. Lupin laughed and took control of the cart, pushing it toward the train. He carried the luggage aboard and Remus followed after him, carrying his Long-Eared Owl, Rokov, in its cage. They stowed Rokov and Remus' trunk in a compartment and returned to Mrs. Lupin.

Mrs. Lupin hugged her son, tears in her sky-blue eyes. "I love you, Remus."

Remus nodded, and then dashed onto the train. Darting to the window of his compartment, Remus leaned over the side and waved to his parents. "Bye, mum! Bye, da!" As the train pulled away from the station, Remus kept his parents in sight for as long as he could. When he was convinced that they were finally gone, Remus sat down on the cushioned seat.

A tall, gangly boy with a mop of wild brown hair and chocolate-brown eyes poked his head into Remus' compartment shortly after the train left the station. "Hey," the boy said fairly loudly. "Is there any room for me and my friend James?"

Remus nodded. "Sure. I'm Remus. Remus Lupin."

The tall boy pulled another boy into the compartment and they sat opposite of Remus. "Nice to meet you, Remusremus Lupin," the tall boy said with a mischievous grin. "I'm Sirius Black." Sirius pointed to the boy he had dragged in. "That's James. Potter."

James, who was a couple inches shorter than Sirius, but a few inches taller than Remus, flashed Remus a smile. James had mischievous green eyes and messy, jet-black hair. "Nice to meet you," James said. He looked around the compartment awkwardly, and then decided to start a conversation. "What house are you hoping to be in?"

Remus cocked his head to the side and thought about the question. "Well, being in Ravenclaw would be nice. Or maybe Gryffindor."

Sirius puffed out his chest proudly. "I want to be in Gryffindor."

James nodded. "Me too. Wouldn't it be nice if we were all in Gryffindor?"

"Yeah, it would be," Remus agreed.

A young lady pushing a cart loaded with snacks peeked into the compartment. "Snacks, boys?" she asked.

"Yeah!" Sirius and James chorused, jumping up.

Remus looked down sheepishly and mumbled, "No money."

Sirius and James looked at each other and grinned mischievously. Turning their backs to Remus, the two friends each bought an armful of candy.

Remus gasped at all of the candy in his new friends' arms, but nearly imploded with happiness when they dropped a rough third of it on his lap. "Wow, mates. Thanks."

Sirius shrugged and James clapped Remus on the back lightly. "No problem, mate."


	2. Chapter 2

After donning their wizard robes, the three friends got off the train. Looking around and wondering where to go, they heard a loud voice. "First years!" it shouted, "First years, this way!"

Remus caught sight of the tall, skinny man whose voice they were following. The man was wearing sandals and a swishing brown cloak, his slick black hair glinting in the lamplight. They made eye contact, and the man smiled beckoning Remus and the other first years forward.

The tall man led the first years to a dock at which dozens of boats were tied. "My name is Professor Hylkema," Professor Hylkema shouted over the excited babble of students. "Four to a boat, please. Quickly, now. Quickly."

Remus, Sirius, and James climbed into the nearest boat and waited to cast off. Remus shot an excited look at his friends, who returned the face. James pointed behind Remus, and Remus, who had had his back to the dock, turned around. Glancing upward, he saw a tall, strawberry blonde girl standing shyly next to their boat. The girl was clutching a rather large book to her chest. She noticed Remus' gaze and smiled bashfully, but remained silent.

"Would you like to sit with us?" Remus asked, patting the seat beside him.

The girl nodded, and then glanced around before climbing into the gently rocking boat. "Thanks," she said quietly, sitting between Remus and Sirius.

"No problem," Sirius puffed out his chest and gave the girl a dazzling smile.

The girl's blue-grey eyes met Remus' as he rolled his light blue eyes. The girl smiled, and then said quietly, "I'm Rieka."

Remus smiled. "Nice to meet you, Rieka. I'm Remus Lupin."

Rieka nodded in acknowledgement, then opened her book and began to read. The volume was easily seven hundred pages long, and it was a mystery to Remus how Rieka could bear to lug around so much weight.

The boats cast off with Professor Hylkema's small vessel in the lead. The boats cut silently through the murky depths of the lake, making small ripples in the still water. Students gasped as a pale, blue-green tentacle poked out of the lake. To their astonishment, the tentacle waved lazily at the passing boats before slipping back into the depths.

"Woah, did you see that?" Sirius asked excitedly, craning his neck in an attempt to spot another lake creature.

James nodded enthusiastically, looking around.

Remus watched Rieka, who was absorbed in her book. The sandy-haired youth bent his head to read the book as well.

"can spit venom as well as fire. A noxious, bright green color, the Venomous

Valiant lives in pools of acid in the fens of Europe. In the land of the Danes,

one such specimen was mistaken for the creature Grendel, a mythical creature

from the mythology of the Norse."

"So, you like dragons?" Remus asked Rieka.

Rieka jumped, looking around for any signs of danger. Once she realized that the only danger was being spoken to by an eleven year-old boy, Rieka smiled sheepishly. "Y-yeah," She noticed Sirius' and James' stares and blushed. "Sorry, I was… lost in my book." Rieka held up the heavy book so the boys could read its cover. _Dragons of Life and Legend by William W. Az-Aten, _the cover read.

"Nice," James said with a reassuring smile.

Rieka lay the book on her lap and resumed reading.

There were gasps of awe as the boats drifted through a curtain of living vines and into a cave large enough to play Quidditch in. The small boats bumped against a pebble beach and came to a stop and the students climbed out.

"Everyone follow me, please," Professor Hylkema called, leading the students up a small slope. The tall man stopped at a very large door and knocked on it thrice. The sound echoed throughout the enormous chamber and the door slowly swung open.


	3. Chapter 3

Professor Hylkema led the nervous first years down a corridor and into a rather small room. Squeezing together to fit everyone inside, the first years hardly made a sound. They were met by a stern-faced woman with piercing brown eyes and brown hair pulled into a bun.

"Good evening," she began. "I am Professor Lunstrum, head of Gryffindor house. The start-of-term banquet shall begin shortly, but first you must be sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, or Slytherin."

"Each house has its own respectable history," Professor Hylkema continued, "and they have each produced successful witches and wizards. At Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn you house points, while any misbehavior will lose them. The house cup is awarded at the end of the year to the house with the most points."

"The Sorting Ceremony will take place shortly. Please wait quietly, for we shall return when we are ready for you." Both Professor Lunstrum and Professor Hylkema turned and exited the room.

Rieka opened her book and settled against the wall of the room then began to read. When Sirius coughed meaningfully, she blushed and shut the book with a sharp snap, then clutched it to her chest. "Sorry, old habit," Rieka apologized quietly.

"So, how do you think we'll be sorted?" Remus asked nervously.

Sirius flexed the muscles on his arms. "I hope we'll have to fight a troll!"

James rubbed his arm where Sirius had accidentally elbowed him. He rolled his eyes and punched Sirius. "Come off it," he said with a grin. "My da says we only need to try on a moldy old hat."

Rieka and Remus let out sighs of relief. "Good Lord. If we'd had to fight a troll…" Rieka trailed off, her eyes growing distant.

Sirius snapped his fingers in front of Rieka's glazed eyes. "Anybody home?" he asked jokingly.

Rieka snapped back to reality with a jolt. "Oh God…sorry. Minor seizure."

Remus found that he longed to comfort Rieka, but suppressed the urge. Instead he gave her a reassuring smile. "It's alright."

Professor Lunstrum reentered the room. "Come with me, please," she said, leading the students into the Great Hall.

Remus gasped. Never in his life had he seen a room so large. It could have held at least three copies of his houses at once.

Four tables ran the length of the Great Hall, and at each table sat at least a hundred students. Many banners hung over each table: red and gold for Gryffindor, blue for Ravenclaw, yellow for Hufflepuff, and green for Slytherin.

Professor Lunstrum herded the first years into a line in front of the tables, then left. Returning at once, the bespectacled professor carried a short stool with a battered brown hat set on top into the hall.

All heads turned toward the patched hat, necks craning to get a better look. The hat opened its sewn mouth and began to sing:

"Greetings to all the students,

Whether you're young or old.

For you've all still got stuff to learn,

Or at least so I'm told.

I seek not to offend,

But only tell the truth.

You're all students forever,

For now and past your youth.

Great times you'll have at Hogwarts,

With learning all around.

But please obey the rules,

Or punishment's where you're bound.

Pranks are what the future holds,

Bless our Hogwarts founders.

By name they shan't be called,

Known only as Marauders.

But be assured,

Safety is key.

To your lucky house you'll not be sorted,

Try me on and we shall see!"

As the students and professors in the hall burst into applause, Professor Lunstrum stepped to the side of the Sorting Hat. Unrolling the very large scroll in her hands a bit, she called, "Adame, Olyvia!"

A skinny girl with a black ponytail nervously stepped out of line, picked up the hat, and sat down. She placed the hat on her head and stared straight ahead.

After a pause, the Sorting Hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Olyvia sat down at the table on the far right as they roared their approval.

"Alorsian, Rieka!"

Glancing back at Remus, Rieka slowly walked toward the stool and hesitantly lowered the hat onto her head.

Remus saw Rieka shut her eyes tightly and murmur words that he couldn't understand. "Nie je Bifľomoru. Prosím Boha, to nie. Ani Chrabromil. Nemohol som sa zvládnuť ... Nie som dosť dobrý."

"SLY-" the Sorting Hat began.

"Ach, Bože, nie Slizolin!" Rieka gasped.

The Sorting Hat stopped mid-yell, then changed his mind. "RAVENCLAW!"

The table second to the left cheered while the Slytherin table sat looking confused. Rieka looked back at Remus as she took her seat and flashed him a smile.

"Anderson, Abbey!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Abbey, a tall blonde girl, hurried to the table second to the right, a large smile plastered onto her face.

"Black, Sirius!"

Sirius stepped eagerly up to the stool and sat down.

After nearly a minute, the Sorting Hat declared "GRYFFINDOR!"

Sirius punched a fist into the air and jumped up, placing the Sorting Hat back on the stool. He quickly took his seat among the cheering Gryffindors at the table on the far left.

"Hagrid, Rubeus...GRYFFINDOR!"

"Gilderoy Lockhart...SLYTHERIN!"

"Lupin, Remus!"

Taking a deep breath and swallowing his fears, Remus stepped up to the stool and placed the hat upon his head. Sitting down and squeezing his eyes shut he whispered, "Ravenclaw. Please put me in Ravenclaw."

_Why not Gryffindor, with your friend? _the Sorting Hat asked. _Because the pretty girl went to Racvenclaw?_

Remus blushed slightly.

_Well, I think you'd do better in _"GRYFFINDOR!" The Sorting Hat shouted the last word, and the table on the far left erupted in cheers.

Remus met Rieka's eyes as he passed the Ravenclaw table and smiled weakly. The strawberry-blonde merely stared at him.

Remembering her manners, Rieka grinned back.

At the Gryffindor table, Sirius clapped loudly and patted Remus on the back. "One down, two to go, eh mate?"

"Yeah, sure," Remus replied distractedly.

"Malfoy, Lucius...Slytherin!"

"McDonald, Rosie," a tall, lean girl with wild dirty-blonde hair was sorted into Hufflepuff.

"Payton, Talia," a short girl with long brown pigtails became a Gryffindor, along with James Potter and Peter Pettigrew.

"Smith, Leslie," a tall girl with messy shoulder-length blonde hair sat down on the stool. The Sorting Hat, when she placed it upon her head, slipped down to rest on the edge of her green-rimmed glasses. Leslie was almost immediately declared a Ravenclaw. She then removed the Sorting Hat, bowed, and skipped to her seat, her blue-green-grey eyes twinkling merrily.

"Weasley, Arthur...GRYFFINDOR!"

"Woodstink, Wilson," a tall, gangly boy with curly brown hair and chocolate brown eyes behind black-rimmed glasses was sorted into Hufflepuff.

"Estelita, Zania," a raven-haired Asian girl was the final student to be sorted.

After a few moments of consideration, the Sorting Hat yelled, "SLYTHERIN!"  
>Professor Lunstrum picked up the Sorting Hat and stool and whisked them away, their job fulfilled once again.<p>

A tall, gangly man took her place, his midnight blue cloak swishing around his ankles. Blue eyes twinkling merrily and white hair flowing, the man -who Remus knew to be Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts- stepped up to the golden podium at the front of the hall. Spreading his arms wide in welcome and beaming at the students, Professor Dumbledore began:

"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! I would like to say a few words before we begin our start-of-term banquet. So here they are: Quagmire! Chivalry! Hippopatamus! Ukelele!

"Thank you." Dumbledore clapped his hands twice and food instantly appeared on the golden platters in front of the students and professors. Everyone cheered and began to help themselves to the food in front of them.


	4. Chapter 4

After dinner the students of Hogwarts were sent to their house dormitories. Remus, Sirius, and James followed a slightly short prefect with blue eyes and peach fuzz hair to Gryffindor tower.

Soon the prefect stopped at the intersection of three hallways, facing a large painting of a large lady in a frilly pink dress. "Password?" the woman inquired haughtily.

"Venomous Valiant," the prefect answered.

Remus' heart gave a sigh. _Rieka would have absolutely loved the password… _Remus watched as the lady in the pink dress smiled in welcome and the painting swung outward—as if on hinges. A large, oval-shaped hole in the wall was revealed, which the students all passed through. Entering a large, cozy, circular room with over-stuffed armchairs and plush couches standing before a roaring fire, the first-years gasped.

"This," began the prefect, "is the Gryffindor common room. I am Kyle, Head Boy." At this Kyle puffed out his chest and gave the new students a dazzling smile, a glimmering golden badge pinned to the front of his robes. "Girls' dormitories are though the hall and upstairs to the left, while boys' are on the right."

Remus, James, and Sirius, not bothering to stay for whatever Kyle had left to say, trumped up the spiral staircase to the top of one of the towers. Finding a cylindrical room with five four-poster beds, the exhausted boys collapsed onto their respective beds.

Shortly a small, mousy boy with ear-length chestnut hair-who Remus remembered to be called Peter—scrambled into the room. Puffing lightly, he looked around nervously then darted to his bed and dove under the covers.

"Shy bloke," Sirius remarked absently.

A large boy with a tangled mass of brown hair stumbled up the last few steps, panting heavily. "'ello," he managed, then crawled the last few feet to his bed and dragged himself onto it. The bed protested loudly as the boy reclined into the cloud of pillows behind him. "Meh name's Rubeus," Rubeus introduced himself.

"Remus," he replied. "They're James and Sirius," he said, pointing to both in turn.

"Nice ter meet yeh." Rubeus drew the scarlet curtains on his bed and muttered, "G'nigh.'"

"Night," Remus answered, but Rubeus had already began to snore.

Shortly all of the boys were asleep, dreaming of their coming adventures at Hogwarts.

~ * ~ * ~ * Meanwhile… * ~ * ~ * ~

Rieka followed a tall, raven-haired girl to the Ravenclaw dormitories. Winding through corridors and stomping up and down staircases—and making sure they didn't move—the Ravenclaws eventually made it to their dormitory. A small brown door—one that Rieka nearly overlooked—had a silver knocker on it in the shape of an eagle's head. A melodious voice floated out over the assembled students, saying, "I'm as big as an elephant but as light as a feather. What am I?"

The raven-haired prefect smiled and answered, "The wind."

"Very good," the voice praised, and the door swung open.

The prefect waved the other students inside and beamed at them all. "Hello," the prefect called out in a strong, clear voice—much like a babbling brook. "Welcome to Ravenclaw house. This is your common room," she spread her arms to indicate the room around them—walls covered in shelves of books, all ringing an octagonal wood floor. A fire danced in a pit in the middle of the room and royal blue couches and armchairs trimmed with silver stood around it. Near the shelves were long tables covered in ink wells and rolls of parchment, six in all. There were two doors in the wall directly across the room from the entrance, and they had silver plaques over them: _"Boys' Dormitories"_ and _"Girls' Dormitories."_

"The door on the left leads to the boys' dormitory, and the one on the right to the girls'," the prefect continued. "Oh, and by the way, I'm Silicia." Silicia, with a dreamy glance around the room, sank into one of the plush chairs by the fire.

Rieka, filled with awe at the splendor of the Ravenclaw common room, resisted the urge to twirl around the room, inspecting everything closely. Instead she turned to her friend Leslie and said, "Everything is _so _pretty! I love it!"

Leslie nodded eagerly, then skipped to a shelf and fingered the spines of the books. "Yeah. Books, parchment, ink… Everything I've ever wanted. Well, not really, but…yeah." Grinning, she flopped down on a silver-trimmed royal blue sofa.

Rieka threw herself onto the sofa next to Leslie and laughed. "This is awesome."

"No, this is epic," Leslie corrected Rieka with a smile.

Rieka giggled. "Yeah. But I think I'm gonna hit the hay. Don't wanna miss out on my first day at Hogwarts just because I slept in." Standing up, her book clutched to her chest, Rieka started toward the girls' dormitories. "Y'comin'?" she asked Leslie.

"Of course! Don't think I'd let you explore any more without me!" Leslie laughed, catching up to Rieka.

Together they skipped through the door on the right. Stopping at a stone wall, the two exchanged confused glances.

"What the…?" Rieka mumbled.

Leslie grinned as a thought hit her. "We've got to say something. A password… A magic code…something."

Rieka cocked her head to the side in thought. "I've got it!" She stepped up to the wall and called softly: "Prosím, daj nám priechod."

As she expected, the wall melted away to reveal a corridor with silver and blue-painted doors on each side. At the end of the corridor was a stained glass window picturing an eagle in flight. Like all of the pictures in Hogwarts, the eagle moved. Letting loose a scream; the eagle flapped his wings in welcome.

"What'd you say?" Leslie breathed in awe.

Rieka chuckled. "I just said, "Please, grant us passage." In Slovakian, of course."

Leslie whistled in wonder. "You've gotta teach me that."

"Later. Let's get to bed." Guided by an impulse, Rieka skipped down the corridor to the last door on the right, bowed extravagantly to the eagle, and dashed inside. Leslie eagerly followed.


End file.
